Chapter 19 #2
Aster pushed her away with force, maybe too much force, the other woman almost falling off of her.
But Aster caught her with a sweep of her arm around Sylvia’s back, stabilizing her.
The other woman’s eyes widened in shock.
A shock that broke the magic connection completely.
Aster felt Sylvia’s tendrils escape her mind, and the tears on her face became even clearer than before.
Aster’s first instinct was to apologize, but something more urgent surged through her. Not quite anger, but close.
She needed Sylvia to hear this.
“Sylvia,” she repeated. “Don’t do that.”
Sylvia blinked, then shrugged her hair off her shoulder casually.
Aster could tell she was trying very badly to piece her shield back together.
If it wasn’t for the wet streaks on her face, Aster would barely be able to tell something was wrong.
“Do what?”
Aster sighed. Maybe she didn’t need to say it.
No. You need to say it. You need to set this boundary.
“I need you to stop using Suggestion on me.”
Sylvia’s eyes widened. Then, as if Aster had struck her with a knife, she shuffled off of her lap, and Aster immediately missed her with an ache. The other woman backed up several feet, then huddled her arms around herself protectively. There was a panic in her eyes.
“Wait, Sylvia—”
“Aster, I would never try to Persuade you to…” Sylvia cringed, becoming visibly disgusted with herself — the thought clearly deeply disturbed her. “Persuade you to have sex with me. I’m not some kind of monster.”
Aster frowned. She stood, and Sylvia took another step back.
“Sylvia,” she sighed. “I know you would never do that. Also, you wouldn’t have to. Because I want to have sex with you.”
Her directness seemed to loosen Sylvia’s hackles. When Aster took another step toward her, Sylvia didn’t flinch away this time.
And when Aster wrapped her hands around Sylvia’s arms, and began to stroke them up and down rhythmically, Sylvia’s frown deepened, but she didn’t run away.
“I really want to have sex with you,” Aster repeated slowly, despite how much the blunt honesty sounded sour on her own ears. “But not when you’re crying. And you trying to persuade my mind that you’re not crying is not okay, either. It’s insane, actually.”
Sylvia rolled her eyes. Aster could feel the muscles tighten in her arms.
“I just—had a stupid moment,” Sylvia muttered. “It wasn’t worth stopping over.”
Aster’s frown deepened, and she squeezed Sylvia’s arm hard enough that the other woman looked up at her.
“Part of consent is letting me make that choice,” she said quietly. “Not just you.”
At that, Sylvia stilled. The message had clearly landed. Something deep within her seemed to shift as she swallowed, and squeezed her eyes shut. She shuddered, and sighed out, “Fuck.”
A moment passed, with Sylvia’s head hanging down. Then she shook her neck, as if trying to free herself from a thought. What started as resignation seemed to transform into something else—anger, fear. She seemed overwhelmed, dissociative.
“Fuck,” she said again. “Fuck, fuck.”
Aster’s eyebrows furrowed. She wanted Sylvia to understand, to agree, but she didn’t want her to feel guilty about it.
She knew it was just a reflex. Sylvia sometimes Suggested things without even meaning to.
It came to her as naturally as breathing.
She did it deliberately, too, of course, but when she felt scared, sometimes it just came out in a rush.
It happened a lot more when they were younger.
Back in Van Helsing’s heyday, vampire hunters had tracked them down into the woods of Transylvania.
Aster had been hit with three crossbow bolts and was bleeding in the grass, and Sylvia had been so scared that she’d accidentally wiped Aster’s mind of the entire incident while she was trying to heal her.
Aster only regained the memories after the fact, when Sylvia unworked the suggestion.
That was the thing about Sylvia’s powers. You could occasionally overpower them naturally, with sheer willpower, or Sylvia could undo the spell herself.
But it wasn’t something they’d had to do in a long time.
Nothing had shaken her up this much until now.
“Sylvia, it’s fine,” Aster assured her, frowning softly as she ran her hands up to Sylvia’s shoulders, then down again. She could feel the other woman shiver. “It’s not a big deal. I just wanted to bring it up in the moment. I’m okay. We’re okay.”
She closed the space between them, bringing her into an embrace.
“I’m sorry,” Sylvia said, her voice cold and distant. Her hands remained by her side.
Aster cupped the back of her head, and scratched her nails against Sylvia’s scalp affectionately.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she whispered.
Sylvia laughed bitterly against her neck.
“Hm,” was all she said.
And in that moment, all the anger washed away, all Aster could feel was an overwhelming protectiveness over the other woman. Because this had all started with the fact that Sylvia had been crying. She’d almost forgotten that, so distracted by Sylvia’s prying into her mind.
Sylvia had been crying about… what?
Aster replayed the moment in her head, and her cheeks flushed.
Sylvia had been talking about being her wife.
That is what had triggered it.
At least, superficially.
Aster’s hand stilled against Sylvia’s head.
She pulled back to look at the other woman, her heart beating quickly in her neck.
“Wait,” she said, trying to sound as delicate as possible. “Why were you crying?”
Sylvia’s jaw clenched. Aster could see the fearful animal in her retreating.
“Sylvia,” she pressed, sounding more desperate than she wanted to. “I really need to know. I really need you to tell me.”
Sylvia avoided her gaze. “I don’t see why it matters.”
As usual, Aster wanted an inch—Sylvia wouldn’t give her a centimeter.
“Just tell me this once, and I’ll do whatever you want forever.”
Aster grinned a little as she said it—she knew the offer was ridiculous—and her whole chest lit up brightly when Sylvia smiled a bit too, unable to help herself.
The other woman rolled her eyes, but it was full of mirth this time.
They just looked at each other for a moment, Sylvia studying her face, before she squeezed her eyes shut and let out a breath.
“Fine. But you’re not allowed to ask any follow up questions.”
Aster laughed incredulously. “Sylvia, that’s ridiculous.”
Sylvia arched an eyebrow. “The rules are the rules.”
“Oh my god. You are so exhausting.”
“And yet you’re glued to me anyway. Pathetic.”
Sylvia was giving her one of those grins. The ones that made it impossible for Aster to ever hate her, even a little bit, no matter the heights her rudeness reached.
“Fine,” Aster muttered. “I suppose I have no choice. Now tell me.”
Sylvia’s shit-eating grin faltered. Realizing she had to actually make good on her end of the deal, she huffed, and, not wanting to meet Aster’s eyes, rested her forehead on her chest instead.
Aster’s stomach fluttered at the intimacy of it. Her nerves frayed at the edges as she waited.
When Sylvia did speak, her voice was so quiet Aster could barely hear it.
“Sometimes,” she mumbled. A long pause. “I get greedy.”
Aster froze, her entire body thrumming at the admission. It was barely a sentence, but still, it lit her mind aflame. Immediately a hundred questions wanted to spring out of her.
Greedy? What did she mean, greedy? Sylvia was a woman who was never afraid to take more than she was offered. She did so with pleasure. She hoarded wealth like a dragon.
What could possibly make her feel greedy? Did she feel greedy with Aster?
As in, she was taking too much from her? As in, she wanted more from her?
Aster’s breathing was coming quickly now, as the thoughts feasted on her.
But then Sylvia’s head drilled even further into her shirt, and she spoke again, even quieter. Her fingers clenched Aster’s shirt, knuckles boring into her sides.
“When I kiss you I can still taste the mortality on your lips,” Sylvia said.
“It makes me feel like something bad devouring something good. Like even if you say you want it, you don’t really want it, because you never wanted any of this.
You didn’t ask to be made into this. You killed my entire clan because you didn’t want this.
And here I am, the child you mercifully left to live, still wanting to bleed you dry. Greedy. Evil. Bad.”
Sylvia laughed coldly against her skin.
“Oh.” Aster’s heart broke. “Sylvia.”
Sylvia nodded her head no before Aster could even get a word out. “I told you, no follow ups,” she said, not meanly, but sternly, and extricated herself from Aster.
“You are not bad,” Aster said forcefully, grabbing her wrist. Emotion clogged her throat, Sylvia’s words making her angry, furious, enraged, sad, protective.
And Sylvia — with all the audacity in the world — just shrugged, turning away, trying to break free of Aster’s grasp.
And in that moment, Aster didn’t care how Sylvia wanted her.
What form or shape it took. She didn’t care if it was only lust; she didn’t care if Sylvia didn’t want to hold her in the morning or kiss her before bed;
If Sylvia couldn’t even touch her without feeling wrong, then even if Sylvia only wanted her for five minutes, for those five minutes Aster would wipe her mind clean.
Aster would play the role of the bad, irrational creature, and force Sylvia to reinvent herself.
So she did something rash.
She picked Sylvia up, bridal style. The other woman yelped in surprise.
“Aster,” she gasped. “What the fuck are you—”
The sentence died in her throat. Aster kicked open the door to Sylvia’s room, and it whined on its hinges as it slapped against the wall. Some of Sylvia’s frames trembled against their nails.